Tom @ Forest Edge Southern Champs

Driving for Project One at Bayford this year we had the pleasure of running Tom this weekend at the Southern Championships, this was never likely to be an easy job as historically Tom has experienced many different factors at the Hampshire circuit, none of which have ever encouraged him to continue there, with the usual banter surrounding his registration it was certainly going to be a busy one.

The Southern Championship sees a different format with racing on Saturday and Sunday, the aggregate results for both going to decide the overall Southern Champ (SC).

Saturday saw the team arrive prepared with a “spotting” army and support team akin to an Indy Race, at least with Luke and Alex Preston on the scene we had plenty of chatter to keep us on our toes especially with Alex soon to arrive on the karting stage.

Saturday practice was straightforward enough and Tom was generally pleased with the setup but the data indicated a couple of changes which were quickly applied, with the club pa system battling against the mid Wiltshire chatter we took Tom up for timed practice, much the same as last year the transponder had failed sadly so Tom went out unaware of the potential issue, with 1 of the time monitoring live timing we hauled him in, kept the kart running with a young MSA official overlooking, changed the device and sent him out for another three laps.

On completion of the timed qualifying we obviously had no time set worth anything but the superb Mychron 4 onboard device had recorded a time worthy of 9th so we insisted the kart was held in parc ferme and went off to the office to appeal…30 minutes later, a witnessed recording and we arrived back in the mix - phew!

Toms progression after this reflected his efforts and he placed himself nicely on the grid in P5 for the final.

Based on his performances in the heats, Tom was looking good for top 3, however, off track antics by other parties meant that it was unlikely to be a simple race. Being honest we had a good race overall, despite a slight delay at turn 2 Tom got his head down and delivered a great performance, it was a delight that a parent who has raced against us for a few years now came up and said “not the quickest but a good drive from Tom being honest”. The history prior to that remark if known would enable you to understand how much that comment was appreciated, in fact Tom was quick, solid and had due to a racing incident at the front between the top 2, been left technically in 1st place to take the first day win, we returned to the pit bay to await the call and review the video footage.

The call came at 1740!

Tom was disqualified after a disgruntled parent had gathered a number of witnesses regarding an alleged incident at turn 2. The MSA didn’t handle this one very well, it was wrong, everyone knew it, but apparently money and weight of numbers outweigh any physical evidence so we had better leave that one alone! Tom wasn’t the only one to suffer from some frankly ridiculous decisions but it was a sad ending to what should have been a good day.

Sunday morning arrived and the previous days antics became even more confusing as we received apologies from parents and drivers who indicated they had been asked to witness. There was nothing to do but get down to the business of racing.

We continued into a reasonable day getting an 8th, 6th and 3rd place and eventually 9th in the final after being fired off from 4th, but of course this time it wasn’t seen.

Simply summed up, I have no idea what happened this weekend at all, we were not the only ones to get caught in the bizarre decisions and bullying culture that appears to be developing. Its also not the first time that its been witnessed at this particular track as other drivers left part way through last season after deteriorating standards of the judicial system and some dubious competitor performances. As one parent put it – “if your face doesn’t fit here, you won’t get any result”

Tom & Ben much to his pleasure and I am sure the other drivers who were caught up in the storm will return to their primary race tasks with some glee, whether you approve of either driver is irrelevant, they are great drivers in differing ways and will race respectfully, will applaud great competition, are individually intense and focused and will always look for the gap if left…. its racing – leave a gap big enough then expect it to get filled!

I only saw one lad doing stuff out there I didn’t approve of, he’s young and will learn quickly, we have officials and his clock will tell him to sort it out…. natural progression for all of them mainly because they all make mistakes. We didn’t resort to throwing are arms about, shouting obscenities across the paddock and using our wallet to get the result we wanted. You only have to look at the common denominators across all the incidents at the weekend to see what’s really going on and its sad to say that we won’t be recommending this track to our drivers until a marked improvement is seen.

On the plus side though - congratulations go out to the Honda Cadet SC Plate winner - Ruben Brown #16, he drove well all weekend took the silverware home along with the coveted SC plate.

Do I know anything about karting apparently hell no, do I think the signs posted by Colin in March should have been prominent – most certainly!

Are we getting this wrong for our kids?

Pretty sure the answer was clear to all, even if we kept quiet to keep the peace then we got it wrong because a number of young drivers suffered, not just Ben and Tom, and they didn’t just suffer on track! However, the team race at lots of tracks and different championships so we know how good it can be, we see it week in, week out and we know it should never be like this.

These are our future racers, when are we going to start protecting the future of our sport.